


Boys Will Be Boys

by Eramia



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, One Shot, Original Character(s), Otherwise known as "Kindred's Day Off", Short & Sweet, Sweet, boys will be boys (aka LET BOYS BE SOFT OR ROWDY IF THEY WANT), does this count as domestic fluff? aw heck why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 01:03:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21467485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eramia/pseuds/Eramia
Summary: The Kindred spirits, Lamb and Wolf, have long worked day after day, claiming soul after soul. It is a universal truth that all will one day fall: either to Lamb's bow or Wolf's teeth. But when Lamb misses her shot, or so they think, they stumble across a group of lost boys' spirits in the woods. If everything is theirs to take, why not take them home?
Comments: 17
Kudos: 35
Collections: K/DGay





	Boys Will Be Boys

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yoshi1123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yoshi1123/gifts).

Upturned earth. Scattered leaves under a dense tree canopy.

“Faster, Wolf, faster!”

Chase. Chase. _ Chase! _

_ The smell is getting stronger. Thicker. _

“Do you have them in your sights, Little Lamb?”

Lamb, balancing carefully on Wolf’s back, nocked an arrow and pulled the string taut. The masked face tilted her head one way, fine-tuning the aim against Wolf’s lumbering gallop, and into the dark let it go. The arrow whizzed past Wolf’s ears and into a knot of tree trunks. Their ears heard a thunk, the sound of a mark hit.

Wolf followed the arrow’s path, his nose in the air.  _ The scent. It’s here. _

Lamb hopped off his back as he slowed down. The mask glanced about, unblinking.

“Where are they, Wolf? Can you still smell them?”

“Yes, but…”

“But?”

“I do not see them.”

“Where could they be?” Lamb sighed. Once an arrow leaves her bow, it’s supposed to mean the end of their hunt. The quick white embrace of death. But not this time, it seemed. Where could this body be? Both of their eyes seemed to fall upon the arrow, deeply lodged in a tree trunk, at the same time.

Wolf gingerly sniffed the lone arrow. “Lamb. What is the meaning of this?”

The masked face tilted in curiosity and, partly, fear. “I...I don’t know.”

“Have you ever missed your mark?”

“Never.”

Wolf clawed at the tree roots. “Does this mean another chase?” He was already salivating at the thought. “Is another soul trying to escape the inevitable?”

“Hey, Lady! You need to be more careful! You coulda taken my head off!”

That voice came from neither of the Kindred spirits.

The faint figure of a face appeared in the trunk underneath Kindred’s arrow. Like something rising out of the depths of water, it became clearer the more it stuck out of the tree. The Kindred could see it clearly now. It was the face of a young boy. A child.

The face became a head and the head became a body as the child stepped out from within the trunk. “You almost blew my hiding spot,” he whispered. He couldn’t be older than nine, there was no way he’s broken double-digits yet.

“Err, Lamb--”

“Wolf, I don’t--”

“There he is!” They heard a singular voice ring out through the clearing. The bushes exploded into leaves as more little boys jumped out, hollering and wild-eyed. A second group crawled sheepishly after them through the gaps they left in the shrubbery.

“Aw, crud!” the first little boy exclaimed, “Time to run!” Before either of the Kindred could react, the boy had taken Lamb by the arm, shouting, “C’mon, Lady! Let’s go!” Wolf barely even had time to snarl. Lamb let herself be yanked along. Begrudgingly, Wolf followed from the shadows of the wood.

“Excuse me,” Lamb asked as they ran, “But where are you taking me?”

“Back to base!” the boy replied, “They can’t tag us there because we’ll be safe. Don’t you know the rules?”

“The rules?”

“Yeah, to hide-and-seek. Haven’t you played before?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Lamb said carefully.

The boy dug his heels into the dirt, skidding to a stop. Lamb had to be careful not to bump into him. “Whaaat?! You’ve never played hide-and-seek?! Who hasn’t played hide-and-seek before?!”

He didn’t give Lamb time to respond. Instead, he called out to the pack of boys following behind them. “Hey, guys, time out!”

The leader of the chase barreled into him as they met midway. “Gotchu!”

“Nu-uh!” the boy cried in disdain, “I called time out!” They looked similar. Siblings, perhaps? The only difference is that the leader had a clean-shaven head with a cap while the boy from the tree was growing into his first ponytail.

“It’s true,” another said but the Kindred couldn’t discern who, “I heard him!”

“But I didn’t hear the passcode so it doesn’t count!” the leader complained.

“What passcode?” the first boy cried, “There’s no passcode!”

“Of course, there is, dummy! We said it at the start of the game!”

“Nu-uh!”

“Yu-huh!”

Lamb quickly lost track of who was who. She felt Wolf’s presence loom behind her. She leaned back onto his flank and whispered, “I suppose I didn’t miss my mark after all.”

“How so?” he asked quietly.

“It seems we have stumbled upon a group of lost souls,” she said, eyeing the group. She saw the more spirited boys arguing over what rules were real and what rules were made up while the softer, quieter ones whispered among themselves or watched ants crawl on the ground. One boy was drawing with a stick.

Wolf sniffed the air in distaste. “Lost souls are not ours to take,” he pointed out.

“This is true, but…” Under the mask, Lamb smiled. “If take we must, then why not take them home?”

A growl rumbled in the back of Wolf’s throat. “Little Lamb, you know I am not meant for these...philosophical deals.”

“This is not true, Wolf,” she told him.

Lamb felt Wolf’s tail scuff her shoulder. “Wolf, I know you live for the chase just as I live for the hunt, but maybe the path to one’s target is not always so...straight-forward.”

Wolf said nothing, a sign he was thinking.

“We are meant to take all things eventually, are we not?” Lamb asked.

Wolf snorted. “Fine,” he grumbled, “I suppose we can...take them home, as you say.”

The masked face leaned back to look into the eyes of the Wolf. “I knew you would say yes. One way or another.”

At that moment, their attention was called back to the children as Tree Boy pointed at Lamb. It would seem they finally got to the matter at hand.

“She’s never played tag before!” he declared. This got a rise out of the boys. A chorus of disbelief rose passionately.

“Who doesn’t know how to play tag? That’s, like, basic,” the leader scoffed.

“It duzzn’t matter. We gotta teach’er!” Tree Boy said. The Kindred were sure they had names, but there were quite a few of them. Their little heads kept turning and moving about. It would seem baby-sitting was becoming a challenge.

Lamb tried to raise her voice above everyone else’s. “Why don’t we start with names?”

Tree boy turned around, almost too eager; he nearly tripped in place. “Good idea, Lady! I’ll start: my name’s Duncan.”

“Hey, why do you get to start?” the leader of the pack whined.

“I’m the one who found her!” Duncan shot back.

“Hey, c’mon now, guys.” This came from a tall boy in the back. The Kindred would’ve mistaken him for a part of the wood if he didn’t speak. “Um, I’m Eli. The boy trying to bite Duncan’s hide off is his older brother, Conor.”

Eli went through the rest of the names: Maes, Roberto, Edward, Malcolm, and Huey. Eight boys in total; although, with all the pandemonium, they seemed like more.

“Ah, hello,” Lamb finally said, “my name is Lamb. And this--” she looked back over her shoulder at her partner-in-crime, “is Wolf.” Wolf merely sniffed at them.

“Yo, Duncan, where’d you find this weird lady?” one boy shouted suddenly. The Kindred couldn’t remember which one that was. Malcolm, maybe?

Lady? Lamb and Wolf shared a glance.

“I think the spirits see what they want to see,” Wolf told her under his breath, “Maybe right now, they see a human man and woman.”

Lamb nodded slowly, trying to wrap her mind around it.

“She has a name, yanno! It’s Lamb and she almost hit me with an arrow!” Another chorus of disbelief.

Conor narrowed his eyes at Lamb, not out of hostility but curiosity. It didn’t strike Wolf this way. He narrowed his eyes in return and got the kid’s attention. Now he was analyzing Wolf.

“Hey, Big Guy,” Conor finally said, “You know how to play tag, right?”

“I’m... _ familiar _ with the game of chase.”

“Are you good?”

“I’ve never lost.”

The boy took a step back, aghast. “I don’t believe you!”

“It’s true, boy,” he told him, “It is truer than you know.”

Normally, Wolf wouldn’t hesitate to put those who underestimate him in their place, but he was beginning to realize that these were children. Merely young boys who had no idea they were speaking with the spirits of death. Did they understand death, even? What is keeping their spirits here, living in the forest as if they never died, playing for days on end? It seemed they had no grudge, no resent. They were fairly happy spirits.

He looked over at Lamb, wanting to point this out and insist they go on a real chase, but Lamb was busy. With the quiet bunch of the group, she was speaking softly. Something about the ants and the forest and whatnot.

He went over to her, mumbling, “It would seem today we will...play with children.”

“Well, there is a human saying: ‘boys will be boys’. I’m not sure I understand what that means,” she replied quietly.

“Are boys not tough? Don’t they like to run and make chaos?” Wolf asked.

“Perhaps. There’s more than one way to be a boy as there is more than one way to embrace death: roughly, softly, and everything in between. Some boys seem to like to listen to poetry and watch ants on the ground. Just like how some little girls like caking their faces in makeup while others will cake their faces with mud.”

Wolf huffed in annoyance as he realized what she was implying. “Lamb, I don’t--”

“It’ll only be for a little bit,” Lamb insisted, “You take the boys who want to run and I’ll take the boys who want to sit and look at clouds. We will give them one last sunny afternoon before they pass on.”

“Before we take them.”

Lamb nodded solemnly. “Before we take them.”

“Um...Miss Lamb?” It was Eli from before. “When are you going to tell us about that poem you mentioned? The one about wild geese?”

Lamb’s masked face tilted in a gesture of acknowledgement. What the boys saw was a warm smile from a woman with wiry, white hair. “I can do that right now.” Then she began to lead the little group she’d gathered away into the sunlit clearing. The boys showed no protest at being separated. They followed in the footsteps of either spirit, awe-struck. It seemed they would be having their day off after-all.

Needless to say, this was unusual. Normally, the Kindred were tied at the hip. What would happen now that they are separated, even briefly?

Truth be told, nothing eventful happens at all. At least, not on a ground-breaking level. The Kindred spirits are bound together because they choose to be.

But they are still individual. Just like the little lost boys in the wood.

Earth is upturned again. Leaves are scattered and scattered again under a stampede of footsteps. This was not the sort of chase he was seeking, but this will have to do.

Conor was leading the group again with Duncan and two others straggling along behind, shrieking and laughing breathlessly. In pursuit of them was Wolf, keeping his muzzle clenched shut. If they saw Lamb as a human woman, they no doubt saw Wolf as a human man; an older brother perhaps, chasing them through the forest. They squealed with delight whenever he nipped at their heels. In their minds, it was like a fleeting tug at the hem of their shirt, which, according to their rules, didn’t count as “It”. To him, it was a tease.

It was difficult, limiting oneself to only a fraction of the natural power in possession. Wolf was somehow managing it. Spittle would no doubt fly from his maw if he were to open it. Maybe the boys wouldn’t mind. These types seemed to like braving the rough side of the world. Unforgiving roughness was what Wolf called home, what he lived for.

One by one, each boy slapped their hand against the trunk of the tree designated as home base, crying out, “safe!” Wolf just happened to arrive at a fraction of a second too late.

“I thought you said you never lost,” said Conor, folding his arms.

“First time for everything,” Wolf shrugged. An annoyed growl tickled the back of his throat, but he swallowed it back.

“Hey, don’t be mean, Conor,” Duncan said, “You were running the fastest because you were the scaredest.”

“Nu-uh!”

“Yu-huh!”

“‘Scaredest’ isn’t even a word…” mumbled one of the other boys, but the siblings didn’t pay him any mind.

“Are you all tired?” Wolf asked his group.

“No way!” Duncan cried, seeming to forget the squabble, “We can run all day!” The three other boys clamored with agreement.

Wolf stepped aside, gesturing to the woods. “Well, go ahead then. I’ll give you all a head start. It might help you, even.”

The four boys ran past him, elbowing and shoving one another. For a split second, Duncan was in the lead until his brother took over. This was the cause for another argument midrun, but with no hard feelings. The boys were rough but well-meaning.

Wolf watched them for a moment or two. He almost chuckled. He thought their eagerness amusing. Then he ran in pursuit of the echoing laughter.

Sunlight gently poured into the clearing where Lamb and her little boys sat. They had sat in a circle, conversing quietly. Eli, who seemed to be the oldest of the group, was teaching the others how to braid blades of grass while they discussed the shapes of clouds.

“I think that one’s a bird.”

“Really? I think it looks more like a cotton ball.”

“You think all clouds look like cotton balls, Huey,” Eli pointed out.

“That’s because they do!” he argued.

Eli turned to Lamb, who had sat there listening. “What do you think?”

“Hmm?” She was lost in thought.

“That cloud.” He pointed to the sky. “What do you think it looks like? I said it was a bird.”

“Oh, um…” Lamb tilted her head back. Truth be told, Lamb’s eyesight was not the best. Ironic for a marksman, true, but the threads of fate decide her mark for her. When an arrow leaves her quiver, it is because it must be done. Maybe that is why she is so fascinated with poetry. She remembers she promised the boys a special poem.

“Yes,” she finally says, “It looks like a flying goose.”

“See? Told you it was a bird,” Eli said. Even despite being the oldest, he was still a child.

“I believe I promised you all a special poem, didn’t I? About wild geese?”

The boys nodded, watching her leaned head face the sky.

“This one was from a special poet I had…” She realized she couldn’t say ‘taken’, so she had said ‘met’. “I met her earlier this year and she shared this poem with me.” And she began to recite:

“ You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.”

She continued reciting through, word for word, deliberate and meaningful. She thought upon each line and said to herself:  _ how beautiful the sky must be. _ It was where some humans believed they would go after they died. Lamb knew this wasn’t true, but it was a beautiful thought nonetheless.

When she finished, the frantic and wild honking of geese sounded above her. She heard wings take flight. Behind her, she sensed Wolf’s approach.

“Did you enjoy yourself, Lamb?” he asked.

“I did. Just as they did.” She ran her fingers in the grass. Half-woven grass braids were left behind in their absence. “Did you enjoy yourself, Wolf?” she asked.

His tail scuffed her shoulder again. She laughed.

“I knew you would,” she said.

He didn’t respond, a sign that she hit her mark.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed Yoshi!!
> 
> If you wanna find more of my stuff I'm more active on Instagram and Twitter nowadays as @mamaeramia !! My Tumblr is @eramia but I don't think that as often anymore.


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